Rackspace supports London Block Exchange in becoming a leading global cryptocurrency exchange

Start-up selects cloud service provider as a ‘one-stop-shop’ for a speedy launch to market and growth

Rackspace® today announces it is working with London Block Exchange (LBX), the UK’s first dedicated multi-cryptocurrency exchange built to help consumers and institutions join the digital money revolution.

The start-up selected Rackspace for its scale and agility to deliver enterprise grade services on an incredibly tight timescale, supporting a quick launch to market within two months.

LBX wanted to migrate its existing application to Azure to ensure it delivered high service availability and quality to its customers, even during peak periods of usage triggered by favourable changes in the market. Rackspace architects and security experts were on-hand around the clock and integrated with the LBX development team to ensure they could deliver the programme on time. The environment went live in just four weeks, enabling LBX to launch to market in a speedy two months. Since launching, the company has been experiencing around 20 percent increase in new users every week, with this demand supported by the new server infrastructure.

Rackspace was also chosen for its credentials as a best-of-breed security specialist. Though not legally required, LBX wanted to meet the same level of regulation and compliance that banks and other financial service organisations do, while also mitigating cyber security risks. Rackspace provides a single source for Azure, Azure Support, Security and Applications optimisation, as well as leading security propositions from Alert Logic and Akamai to help LBX satisfy their ISO, PCI, GDPR and FCA requirements.

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Keeping the platform running seamlessly was another key consideration for LBX, especially as its customer base grows and puts additional pressure on capacity load. And since crypto trading can be extremely volatile, LBX needed a partner that could immediately react to real-time market trends and fluctuations, as interest in the market, perhaps through a new token or coin listing can generate hundreds of thousands of enquiries in just one hour. Rackspace now deploys management tools within the applications and application infrastructure to constantly manage the entire LBX environment, delivering against a 15-minute response for critical issues. It also has the ability to identify performance issues before LBX does, scaling the environment accordingly and resolving any problems as swiftly as possible, so as not to impact the user experience of the platform.

Moving forward, Azure will also act as a transitional-architecture as LBX seeks to move to a more serverless application architecture, including web and mobile apps, containers and artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Not only will this help the company keep-pace with the ever-changing environment of crypto-currencies, but also support growth. Currently, LBX regularly issues new alternative cryptocurrencies, and in the future aims to increase the frequency and quantity of releases. It also has ambitious global expansion plans to enterEurope very soon and then the Middle East, Hong Kong and Singapore, with the global scale, capacity and flexibility of the Azure platform allowing it to mirror current operations in those markets. Furthermore, LBX plans to create the first UK securities token exchange that will better serve institutional investors; something which will continue to require the best in class services provider.

Benjamin Dives, founder and CEO, LBX said: “We leveraged our crypto passion into a living, breathing business that’s going from strength to strength. The support from Rackspace has been invaluable from the offset. Its deep infrastructure expertise, security credentials and scalability, as well 24x7x365 support, meant it was an easy choice for us. It is literally a one-stop-shop that not only reduces our total cost of ownership but enables us to focus on innovating for our customers, rather than being drawn into engineering concerns.

“Our vision for LBX is to be thought of as more than just a Crypto Currency Exchange – we want to revolutionise the financial world by helping reestablish London as an innovative trading place post Brexit. While founded in the UK, we’ve set our sights on becoming a global exchange hub, with the aim of managing thousands of transactions for new customers every day. Knowing that our infrastructure won’t fall over during this next phase is essential, to not only give our customers confidence but investors too. Digital assets have the power to disrupt a number of different industries and this strong footing has really helped our brand prepare for taking on the world.”

George Bray, VP Partner Clouds EMEA, Rackspace said: “We helped LBX launch its platform in an incredibly tight timeframe, which was both challenging and incredibly thrilling. We had to ensure that LBX not only has the flexibility and capacity to keep up with its surging customer base, but that it’s cloud environment adheres to the stringent security requirements that it upholds. We look forward to continuing to work together as the start-up grows and disrupts the traditional financial markets.”